Tap.Tools 3. I’ve mentioned it before in tentative terms, or in personal conversations, but I’ve been mostly tight-lipped about it here on the blog. It’s been on the burner for a while though, and the parts are starting to come together.

The Overview

I’m just going to give a broad impression for the time-being, but more information will be dribbling out as we get closer to a release.

The big re-write… (including 64-bits)

The whole set of objects is being re-written in Objective-C. Much of this information has been posted to this blog. The Objective-C framework will be released under an open source license. The objects will be released under a similar license to what is currently in use for Tap.Tools 2.

Writing the object’s in Objective-C provides access to greater functionality in the Max objects—particularly on the Mac, but also on Windows. Code written in Objective-C also has the benefit of being automatically promoted to run as 64-bit under MacOS 10.5 Leopard.

Max 5 Integration

Tap.Tools 3 will largely be focused on integrating seemlessly with Max 5. It will include extensive documentation pages (which don’t currently exist in Tap.Tools 2), re-written help patches, strong use of Max 5’s metadata tagging, and various other features. Tap.Tools 3 will require Max 5. Once people use Max 5, I don’t think this will be an issue.

New Objects, Less Objects

Yes, there will new objects. More information on them will appear at a later time. There is also a notion of “less objects”. While the existing objects will still work, new higher-level objects will begin to combine many of the Tap.Tools externals.

This means that there could actually be fewer objects, but more functionality. For example, the current release of Tap.Tools has at least 5 different lowpass filters in it. They will all be combined into a single object, and then you can choose the filter as an attribute. It makes it easy to audition the different algorithms. Object mappings will make sure old patchers don’t break.

When

Tap.Tools 3 will be released concurrently with Max 5. This is anticipated to be Q1 2008.

All people who have purchased, or will purchase, Tap.Tools 2 after October 1, 2007 will receive a free upgrade to Tap.Tools 3 when it is released.